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November 17, 1997, Section: Networking

Fortress Bolsters VPNs -- Software helps manage, extend secure IP links

By Beth Davis

Fortress Technologies Inc. is adding software to its line of security systems to help IT administrators manage and extend their virtual private networks.

NetFortress Manager lets administrators remotely shut down or reboot Fortress' VPN system, which establishes secure, encrypted data communications tunnels over private or public IP networks. The software also lets users make sure the VPN links are up and running, and that traffic moving between Fortress systems is encrypted.

"The management capability will be fantastic," says Steve Miley, director of IS at Deckers Outdoor Corp., a maker of outdoor apparel. Deckers has been using Fortress's VPN hardware to secure links between its corporate office in Santa Barbara, Calif., and a European office it opened earlier this year. "We needed to facilitate an inexpensive, secure connection and chose to use the Internet as a backbone," Miley says. "Fortress offered a plug-and-play security solution."

Management is especially important for VPNs, says Jim Balderston, an analyst with Zona Research Inc., because companies are just now starting to deploy the technology and don't have much experience with it. "Like any security technology-access controls, intrusion detection, digital certificates-it doesn't help to deploy it and then not be able to manage it," Balderston says.

Fortress is also introducing NetFortress Remote, client software that makes it possible for users on the road to connect to the corporate network via a VPN. The software scrambles only that data considered sensitive by automatically encrypting transmissions to certain network addresses. Miley says he hopes to implement the software so some 75 sales representatives can access Lotus Notes via the Internet instead of by dialing an 800 number.

Fortress, in Tampa, Fla., will ship the software in early December. NetFortress Manager, which runs on Windows NT and Windows 95, is priced at $1,995. NetFortress Remote, which runs on Win95 and eventually will run on NT Workstation, is priced at $99 per client.